Tarantine Cavalry-Hurrah, A Finished Unit!!

Aventine Tarantine cavalry, based up for the Impetus rules, bu they can also serve purpose for Armati when I go over to game with the lads at New Buckenham.
I have another unit of these to do, the next lot will get more Italian style shields just to make them look a bit different.
Quite pleased how these turned out, as painting horses is not really my strong point.

Advancing Phalanx-Review

Along with my Thureophoroi order, I decided to pick up the advancing Phalanx unit pack (UD34) as well, after all you can never have too many pikemen!!!

This unit pack contains packs PH 21 22 23 & 24 bought as individual packs they would cost £18, the unit pack costs £16.65, so thats a good saving.
The figures, up to the usual Aventine standard, nice clean casts with a minimal clean up. A little bit more work required as the command group does contain some figures that require assembly. You get a good mix of linothorax amoured figures, along with some more heavily armoured types, in a muscle cuirass. The figures carry their pikes at a nice angle of around 45 degrees, thus avoiding the problem of impaling your hand, as I often do on the upright pike blocks!!!
Once painted, I think this unit will look rather impressive.
Check out the other unit packs on the Aventine site, as there are some good deals in there.

Thureophoroi Review

Having seen the news of the new Aventine release, on the Steve Dean Forum, I took the plunge and ordered a few packs.
So heres another short review for interested parties.
There are three packs available, two packs of thureophoroi, and a command pack. The thureophoroi packs are essentially the same, just different weapon options ( either javelin or spear).

OK, so lets take a look at the Thureophoroi pack first. Each pack contains four figures, along with sufficient shields, and weapons for each. The first thing you notice, are the separate heads, this gives you some variety when assembling the figures. I like the seperate head option, the heads themselves fit nicely into the neck recess on the figures, I would recommend filing down the neck stump, thus avoiding the dreaded "bobblehead" look that can result from seperate head models.
Detail wise, the figures are very good, folds in the clothing are well defined, and the helmets are well detailed.

The figures are cleanly cast with minimum mould lines, there is a bit of cleaning up involved around  the shield hand, where there is a small bit of flash, but its not that difficult. Both hands are cast open, thus giving the option of placing javelins behind the shield, and in the throwing hand.
The figures are a little big larger than the Crusader model, you could get away with mixing them in a unit. The big difference of course, are the cloaks, and you will need to get extra shields, so they all match!!!

The command pack contains four figures, but no seperate heads this time. You get a trumpeter, standard bearer, and attacking Thureophoroi, and a rather splendid officer ( my favourite figure in this release)

I will probably use him elsewhere, as he is far too smart for a dodgy mercenary unit!!
All in all, another useful release from Aventine. Thureophoroi units can be found in most of the Successor armies, and these models will serve purpose quite well for that.